Four Dads: Four Perspectives!
We asked four fathers to share their views about being dads. Here's who they are:
Ethan Stewart is a history teacher and marathon-running enthusiast. His daughters are ages 3 and 6.
Elisha Cooper is the author of Crawling: A Father's First Year. He's a children's-book writer and illustrator and father of daughters ages 4 and 6.
Steve McKee, a journalist, is the author of My Father's Heart: A Son's Reckoning with the Legacy of Heart Disease. He has a 19-year-old son.
Kent Johnson, CEO of Highlights for Children, is the father of two sons, ages 2 and 5. Before coming to Highlights, he was a scientist and science educator.
We began by asking Kent Johnson:
Has being a father influenced your role as the CEO of Highlights for Children? Has being the CEO of Highlights influenced the way you're raising your sons?
So much of what we do at Highlights is helping children become their best selves. Being a father helps me think about everything we do at Highlights and the mission of our companies.
As the CEO of Highlights, I'm around people who are experts in child development, so I'm constantly learning about kids and discovering activities that I can try with my own children. My role at Highlights also provides me with insight into the ways that people create materials for children. I sometimes bring home products to see how my kids interact with them. My work has made me more attentive to the ways children develop and more thoughtful about how I raise my sons. Becoming a father influenced my feelings about coming to work at Highlights, and it's a great match.
Then we asked:
What surprised you most about becoming a dad?
Kent Johnson: I was amazed at how one can function with so little sleep! It also surprised me how much effort it takes to be an involved dad, yet how rewarding and how much fun it can be.
Ethan Stewart: I discovered how much I enjoy simply being with my kids and appreciating those little moments of tenderness. Plus, I was surprised at how it's made me a better person.
Elisha Cooper and his daughter
Elisha Cooper: I was surprised that my children would grow up and have opinions! But as a young father, I was in a constant state of surprise. I wrote Crawling to deal with the surprises. My essays were supposed to be an honest take on fatherhood. Maybe "surprised" is the wrong word. How about "bewildered" or "appalled" or "actively in search of the nearest secondhand store where I could sell the ugly baby gifts"?
I think for all fathers, there's a tension between what we're supposed to be and what we are. "Surprised" is when we realize this.
Steve McKee: Suddenly, becoming a dad made me whole again. My wife and I were unable to have our own baby, so we turned to adoption. We were in the birthing room with the birth mother. It was an extremely difficult birth, and Patrick was barely able to whimper for 24 hours. I just remember this wave of emotion that came over me when I first held him. It was an overwhelming sensation. I remember telling my mother about it and how stunned and humbled I was to think that I might have done the same to (and for) her and Dad 38 years before.
How has being a father changed you?
Kent Johnson: First and foremost, it's maintained or increased my humility. It's such an awesome responsibility. There's no way of being perfect or perfectly in control. It's made me more balanced and more diverse in what I do and how I think about the world.
Ethan Stewart: I am more conscious of providing an example to my children in terms of eating, exercise, interacting with others, preserving the Earth, and generally trying to live a purposeful, joy-filled life.
Elisha Cooper: Who knows? It's impossible to know exactly how I would have been had I not been what I am. I'd say being a father has changed me for the better. I'm stronger (I can carry two small humans). I can read upside down. I'm a better cook.
Being a father has also changed me for the worse. I'm crankier and patience-challenged. My knees are weaker (maybe from all that carrying). Overall, being a father has enriched me. I can imagine nothing else. And since I write children's books, being a father has given me material. Thanks, girls!
Steve McKee: Inevitably, a lot of water has passed under the father-son bridge in the past 19 years. Everything hasn't gone the way I thought it might when I held Patrick that first time. It doesn't for anybody, does it? And so I think it's important to never forget that I am whole because of him.
How are you different from your own father?
Kent Johnson and his son
Kent Johnson: I think in a lot of ways, I'm similar to my dad in personality and style. One thing I credit my father for is that he emphasized to my brother and me the importance of being kind. I strive to be like my own father, which I think is a good sign.
Fathers in my generation are expected to partner with their spouses from their kids' earliest years. My father delighted in the stage when children were able to play games and engage—age 6 and up. On the other hand, I discovered how much I enjoyed the earlier, pre-speech phase. Because of a career transition, I was a full-time dad during the first 4 months of my older son's life. Along with my wife, I got to experience sleep deprivation and be involved in all the infant routines.
Ethan Stewart: I think I am more involved in the daily job of raising my kids, at least at an early age, than my father was. I change a lot more diapers and make a lot more dinners.
Elisha Cooper: My father is gentle and generous. I'm not, though I hope to be with my daughters. When my friends meet my father, they say, "Your father is such a sweet man!" The implication is, "What happened to you?" That's fine, I suppose. I'm all rage and opinion—in this way, I take after my mother. But my father and I, we both love our children.
Steve McKee: My father was a great dad in so many ways, always present for my mom, sister, and me. However, he was very much a product of his generation—the WWII/post-war-economic-boom generation—and had a stressful job. There was a price to be paid for all that, and he died of a heart attack at age 50, when I was 16. He was a three-pack-a-day smoker. Me? I have stayed in good shape my entire life—for me, yes, and sometimes I think for him as well . . . and now, for Patrick.
What fatherhood issues are you still working on?
Kent Johnson: Patience, for one, since being a father takes an almost infinite supply. I also work on listening attentively and really focusing on what each of my sons is saying, whether the communication is verbal or not. Negotiating seems to be an ongoing parenting issue as well. And figuring out how to approach discipline in the most appropriate way is a continual challenge. The issues keep changing as my sons grow up and move through different stages. It takes constant work.
Ethan Stewart: I work on having patience and finding creative activities and projects for my kids to do. I try to find enough energy for my kids and all their activities! I'm also figuring out how to explain spirituality and religion in a meaningful and thoughtful way.
Elisha Cooper: One of the big reasons I wrote Crawling was to challenge the idea that there are separate fatherhood issues. Now, of course, I know there are! I have issues now with sleep that I don't think I would have otherwise. Still, I'd much rather think about my issues as a human, a 38-year-old man blundering through life.
But yes, I'm probably "working" on my fatherhood issues: anger, impatience, time alone with my wife, my deep hatred of certain shades of pink and anything having to do with princesses.
It would be more accurate to say that I'm not actually working on these issues: I'm taking a coffee break from working on them, kvetching with friends about them, then heading back, a little late, to being a father.
Steve McKee as a child with his father
Steve McKee: There isn't a fatherhood issue that I am NOT still working on. I think what happens is that once you think you have one issue mastered (and, in fact, you actually might!) the next one in the unending line is there waiting for you. It's a little easier to deal with once you realize that this isn't happening to just YOU. This fatherhood thing is bigger than all of us. Which doesn't mean there haven't been plenty of times when you want to just throw up your hands and scream, "OK, can we be done with this already?!"
My dad died when I was 16. With Patrick at 19, I am now three years into uncharted waters, with none of my own me-and-dad experiences to draw on. Before that, I found myself remembering EXACTLY how my dad had dealt with me in the same kind of situations. I sure wish he had lived even just a few more years to have given me some pointers on teenage sons at ages 17, 18, and 19.
At Highlights, we encourage kids to be confident, caring, curious, and creative. As a dad, what are some of the things you do to impart these values?
Kent Johnson: I've discovered there are two major modes for getting values across. One is to model them, and the other is talking about them. In my family, we set an example of creativity by doing things together—whether it's drawing or making music. We keep art supplies and musical instruments around for "band time."
We help our kids become more caring by talking about things that happen in school or between our two sons. We discuss what the other person is feeling. I've also found that good children's books are helpful, and I try to ask questions that spur conversations that go beyond what's in the story.
Ethan Stewart: How do I foster curiosity? I want to show my kids that it's OK to try new things. I encourage my daughters to observe what we see in our daily routines, like a flower or an interesting rock. Then I ask them to think about why something is the way it is. How do I foster creativity? I encourage drawing and lots of dramatic play—and support their singing whenever they feel like it!
Elisha Cooper: I've always had a suspicion that if, well-intentionally, parents encourage children to be a certain way, they'll react against it (especially when there's a gap between what parents say and how parents act). I hope that if my daughters see me fascinated by the world, see me being kind, and see me resolving arguments, all will follow.
Steve McKee: I have come to realize that the best way for me to try to help Patrick be confident, caring, curious, and creative is NOT to try to make him be confident, caring, curious, and creative in the way I would want him to be or the way I hope that I grew into those things myself. Now that he is 19, I can't be telling him what to do in this regard. Nevertheless, there are many times when I'll jump right in with, "NO, THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO DO!" which is the LAST thing he wants to hear from me. (And I get why he doesn't. At least, I think I do.)
When you spend time with your kids, what activities do you share? What do you read to your kids?
Kent Johnson: Both my kids are very active, so we do a lot of outdoor stuff, like biking and soccer. My older son loves board games and video games.
We are believers in having as much print around as possible: a variety of books and magazines. The key is diversity, and we like finding books that the kids want to hear over and over. I have some biases about books, but I let them select their own bedtime stories. And I really enjoy reading to them.
Ethan Stewart: We like singing songs, running around, cooking, and reading.
We read lots of different books, from picture books to Japanese fairy tales, Hawaiian stories, Thornton W. Burgess books, princess and fairy stories. One of their favorite books is about palindromes, and of course they like the Mo Willems Pigeon series of books. We like books that are funny, sweet, or that open up a unique window on the world . . . like haikus!
Elisha Cooper: This question ties in with the one above. Because the biggest way I try to influence and encourage my daughters (and I'm often unsuccessful) is just by sharing with them the activities I love. Hanging out in cafes, drinking hot chocolate while drawing or reading books, playing lots and lots of sports, climbing trees, planting basil on our porch, shopping at the farmers' market, jumping in waves at the beach, reading the sports pages in The New York Times every morning and finding the funniest picture . . .
We read a lot, usually books from illustrators whose work I admire—from Barbara McClintock to Mo Willems to anything by Kevin Henkes. While my girls like the fact that I make books (especially when I dedicate my books to them), they're moving on to other things, as they should. So we've recently been reading more chapter books.
Steve McKee: I will always cherish the time Patrick and I spent together when he was involved in a go-kart league. He actually got to be pretty good and won the club's B-flight championship for his age group. I mention that because it taught me an important lesson. I didn't know ANYTHING about go-karts, which meant I had to be willing to turn Patrick over to this go-kart place and its people, to trust them, to let them work with him. I learned that I had to be willing to let OTHER people be important in Patrick's life.
I read all the standard stuff to Patrick, and it was great. But I still felt something was missing, and so I put together Patrick's Big Book of Adventure Poetry. I copied sheets of poems in a three-ring binder. The collection included "The Spell of the Yukon" by Robert Service, "The Man from Snowy River" by "Banjo" Paterson, "Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Thayer, and "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes. Whitman has a poem called "To a Locomotive in Winter," in which all he does is describe a steam engine at rest, covered in snow. Patrick loves trains, so it was the perfect poem. I was really proud of this personalized collection and still am.